The historical record of Hitler's Night of the Long Knives may shed some light on the reasons why political megalomaniacs decide to assassinate their most ardent supporters. Those who worked to bring them to power become liabilities to their ability to hold power. And liabilities must be eliminated.

SA History: (excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung)The Sturmabteilung, abbreviated SA (German for "Storm detachment" or "Assault detachment" or "Assault section", usually translated as "stormtroop(er)s"), functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s.

After Hitler took power in 1933, the SA became increasingly eager for power and saw themselves as the replacement for the German army. This angered the regular army (Reichswehr), who already resented the Nazis. It also led to tension with other leaders within the party, who saw Röhm's increasingly powerful SA as a threat to their own personal ambitions. Originally an adjunct to the SA, the Schutzstaffel (SS) was placed under the direct control of Heinrich Himmler in part to restrict the power of the SA and their leaders.

By 1934 Adolf Hitler appeared to have complete control over Germany, but like most dictators, he constantly feared that he might be ousted by others who wanted his power. To protect himself from a possible coup, Hitler used the tactic of divide and rule and encouraged other leaders such as Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Roehm to compete with each other for senior positions.

Rohm Goering

One of the consequences of this policy was that these men developed a dislike for each other. Roehm was particularly hated because as leader of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) he had tremendous power and had the potential to remove any one of his competitors. Goering and Himmler asked Reinhard Heydrich to assemble a dossier on Roehm. Heydrich, who also feared him, manufactured evidence that suggested that Roehm had been paid 12 million marks by the French to overthrow Hitler.

However, Adolf Hitler had his own reasons for wanting Roehm removed. Powerful supporters of Hitler had been complaining about Roehm for some time. Generals were afraid that the Sturm Abteilung (SA), a force of over 3 million men, would absorb the much smaller German Army into its ranks and Roehm would become its overall leader.

Industrialists such as Albert Voegler, Gustav Krupp, Alfried Krupp, Fritz Thyssen and Emile Kirdorf, who had provided the funds for the Nazi victory, were unhappy with Roehm's socialistic views on the economy and his claims that the real revolution had still to take place. Many people in the party also disapproved of the fact that Roehm and many other leaders of the SA were homosexuals.

Adolf Hitler was also aware that Roehm and the SA had the power to remove him. Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler played on this fear by constantly feeding him with new information on Roehm's proposed coup. Their masterstroke was to claim that Gregor Strasser, whom Hitler hated, was part of the planned conspiracy against him. With this news Hitler ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting in the Hanselbauer Hotel in Wiesse.

The architects of the purge: Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and Hess. Only Himmler is missing.

The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point in the history of Hitler's Germany. Hitler had made it clear that he was the supreme ruler of Germany who had the right to be judge and jury, and hadthe power to decide whether people lived or died.

At about 4:30 on the morning of June 30, 1934, Hitler and his entourage flew into Munich. From the airport, they drove to the Bavarian Interior Ministry, where they assembled the leaders of an SA rampage that had taken place in city streets the night before. Enraged, Hitler tore the epaulets off the shirt of Obergruppenführer Schneidhuber, the chief of the Munich police, for failing to keep order in the city on the previous night. He shouted at him that he would be shot.[34] Schneidhuber was executed later that day. As the stormtroopers were hustled off to prison, Hitler assembled a large group of SS and regular police, and departed for the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, where Röhm and his followers were staying.[35]

At Bad Wiessee, Hitler personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. According to Erich Kempka, one of the men present during the raid, Hitler turned Röhm over to "two detectives holding pistols with the safety catch removed", and the SS found Breslau SA leader Edmund Heines in bed with an eighteen-year-old SA senior troop leader.[36] Goebbels would emphasize the latter in subsequent propaganda justifying the purge as a crackdown on moral turpitude.[37] Both Heines and his partner were shot on the spot in the hotel grounds on the personal order of Hitler.[34] Meanwhile, the SS arrested a number of SA leaders as they departed their train for a planned meeting with Röhm.[38]

The fact that no plot by Röhm to overthrow the regime ever existed did not prevent Hitler from denouncing the leadership of the SA.[37] Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history". Hitler told the crowd that "undisciplined and disobedient characters, and asocial or diseased elements" would be annihilated. The crowd, which included party members and many SA members fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval. Hess, present among the assembled, even volunteered to shoot the "traitors" himself.[38] Goebbels, who had been with Hitler at Bad Wiessee, set the final phase of the plan in motion. Upon returning to Berlin, he telephoned Göring with the codeword Kolibri to let loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims.[37]

The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced by Adolf Hitler on 13th July. It was during this speech that Hitler gave the purge its name: Night of the Long Knives (a phrase from a popular Nazi song). Hitler claimed that 61 had been executed while 13 had been shot resisting arrest and three had committed suicide. Others have argued that as many as 400 people were killed during the purge. In his speech Hitler explained why he had not relied on the courts to deal with the conspirators:

"In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I become the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason." ~ Adolph Hitler

====================================================================So who will it be that Obama and his handlers decide is a liability? When will the executions begin?(Or have they already started....?)

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And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.Matthew 25:40

US officials on Thursday told scores of firms offering security in Iraq that their personnel will lose immunity from prosecution under a new US-Iraq security pact due to take effect in January.

The officials told reporters that they briefed delegates from 172 security contractors employing nearly 175,000 Americans, Iraqis and others in Iraq about the new rules under a pact set to replace a UN mandate expiring December 31.

Security firms heard how many rules and procedures for troops and contractors were "rightfully changed as a result of this historic development," the officials told reporters, quoting from a statement they read to the firms.

The firms provide armed escorts and other security measures to US and Iraqi government officials, as well as foreign diplomats and members of non-government organizations like aid groups.

Under the changes, contractors "can no longer expect that they will enjoy the wide ranging immunity from Iraqi law that has been in effect since 2003," when US-led forces invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, according to the statement.

The firms were reminded that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi political leaders have said publicly that "they plan to take the legal steps necessary to remove these immunities at an early date," the statement said.

Contractors "can expect to be fully subject to Iraqi criminal and civil law and to procedures of the Iraqi judicial system," it said, adding their status will be in line with that of contractors in Afghanistan and other countries.

The US embassy in Baghdad will work with the Iraqi government to help ensure that any US government contractor "accused of a crime is treated fairly," the statement said.

The official draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which has still to be approved by the Iraqi parliament, has not yet been made public.

A Department of Defense official told reporters that he was not aware of any security firm wishing to leave Iraq over the loss of immunity.

"We have had for months informal discussions," the official said on the condition of anonymity.

"Some of our contractors expressed concerns ... None of them, to my knowledge ... have made the explicit statement if 'I loose immunity, I will walk,'" the official said.

"I would suspect there is a wait and see attitude, to see how this in fact plays out," the official added.

The lifting of immunity was expected since 17 Iraqi civilians died in Baghdad in September last year when guards escorting a diplomatic convoy on behalf of private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire at a crossroads.

The firm says its guards were acting in self-defense.

There are more security contractors than there are US troops, which currently number around 150,000 men and women.

The Defense Department says it employs 163,000 contractors in Iraq, with 17 percent of them US citizens, 49 percent of them Iraqi and the rest from other countries.

The State Department says it employs 5,500 contractors, the vast majority of them US citizens, while the US Agency for International Development employs 4,800 security personnel.

Logged

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.Matthew 25:40

Oct 7, 2008 Nevada investigators today raided the offices of ACORN -- a group that works to register minorities and low-income people to vote -- looking for evidence of voter fraud, reports the Associated Press.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names, according to a spokesman at the office of Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat.

Two months ago, state and federal authorities formed a joint task force to pursue charges of election fraud in Nevada.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------quote author=bigron link=topic=64293.msg333168#msg333168 date=1223732393----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why the GOP Is Nuts About ACORNAttacks on ACORN appear to be part of a broader GOP strategy to shrink the number of Dem voters and sow doubts if the election turns out to be close.

What explains the Republicans' fixation on ACORN in recent days? From Sen. McCain's campaign manager to GOP luminaries to the McCain campaign's own new web ad, ACORN appears to be target # 1 of the GOP campaign against Senator Obama, surpassing even a focus on William Ayers. The claims are that ACORN is engaging in massive voter fraud through its voter registration activities, and -- according to the new web ad -- that the group forced banks to take on risky loans that have led to the country's financial crisis. Though at first glance it may look like this is about tying Senator Obama to a group that has been under investigation for its voter registration activities, the real point appears to be part of a broader Republican strategy to remove likely Democratic voters from the voter rolls and to lay the groundwork to contest the outcome of the presidential election in the event of an extremely close result in a battleground state.

Let's start with the direct Obama connection. The McCain campaign is trying to associate the campaign with ACORN's questionable activities, in the same kind of guilt-by-association claims made about William Ayers and Obama "palling around with terrorists." It is a nice bonus that ACORN has been involved in housing issues as well, as it is a chance to deflect attention from the Bush Administration's handling of economic issues and placing blame on a convenient scapegoat. (Next we will learn that ACORN invented financial derivatives.)

With the polls showing the McCain campaign consistently lagging, it is raising the ACORN issue among others to see if it sticks.

But we should resist the temptation to chalk up this ACORN obsession to just another guilt-by-association campaign tactic. For the last three elections, Republicans have been ramping up cries of voter fraud as a way of undermining the legitimacy of the election results should they not turn out in their favor and providing a reason for strict voting purges that are likely to remove many Democratic voters from the rolls.

We saw the voter fraud call in 2004, when Republicans virtually guaranteed that they would have challenged the presidential election results if John Kerry won and the results turned on the outcome in New Mexico, which Republicans said was rife with voter fraud. (Don't forget that this unsubstantiated concern drove the U.S. attorneys scandal.) We saw it with the activities of the American Center for Voting Rights, a Republican-aligned group that promoted the unsubstantiated claims of impersonation voter fraud in an often-successful effort to enact voter identification laws. We see it now with the reissuance of John Fund's book, Stealing Elections, full of anecdote but virtually no evidence of systematic voter fraud that can lead to a change in the outcome of elections. (The kind of fraud that leads to changes in election outcomes has been with absentee votes, which have mostly been ignored in these efforts.) And just try doing a Google News search for the term "voter fraud." You will see people who believe that foreign money is flooding the Obama campaign, that Obama is not a natural born citizen, and that the election will be stolen through voter fraud.

This is the reason that the ACORN controversy is a godsend to the Republicans. It fits into their meme that the election of Obama would be illegitimate and procured by fraud.

ACORN has been very active in registering voters, especially in big cities and in battleground states. It hires low income workers to do the registration (part of a way of providing additional employment for these workers), and there have been numerous documented cases of ACORN workers turning in fraudulent registration forms. These problems have led to convictions and new investigations -- -including a raid earlier this week in Nevada (which, by the way, has a Democratic Secretary of State).

ACORN has claimed that it is a victim of the fraud, not a perpetrator of it. It argues that it can't help it if a small share of its workers are turning in these forms. I find this kind of argument unpersuasive. With these persistent problems, ACORN needs to find a different business model for registering voters, even if it means that fewer voters will be registered and fewer low income people employed in the voter registration business.

But the important point now is that fraudulent registrations put in by ACORN employees are not going to lead to fraud at the polls, and Governor Danforth recently claimed in a conference call with reporters. Why else would ACORN submit phony registration forms if not to game the outcome of the election, he asked. The answer is simply that these employees want to keep their jobs. And it is worse if employees are pressured to meet quotas to turn in a certain number of forms, something ACORN denies it is doing.

So even if Mickey Mouse is registering, he is not showing up on election day to cast ballots, and so far as I am aware, there have been no cases of phony voter registrations leading to the casting of votes in any election that have been on any large scale -- much less affected the outcome of elections. So we should all agree that those who submit fraudulent voter registration forms should be punished criminally, but that such activity is not going to affect the outcome of the presidential election: Obama is running way ahead in the polls, and if he wins in a landslide it is not because Donald Duck has voted thousands of times in key swing states.

But cries of voter fraud allow for harsh purging of voters from the rolls. Because of decentralization of election authority and a lack of administrative competence or will, the rolls are inaccurate in many states. Careless purging -- driven by unsubstantiated fears about voter fraud -- can lead to many eligible voters being incorrectly removed from the polls. Despite the fact that eligible voters are being removed from the polls, the GOP is pushing for more purging in Ohio, and they found a sympathetic federal judge, citing ACORN's activities, in requiring the Democratic Secretary of State to allow county elections board to purge of many new Ohio voters who do not have an exact match in inaccurate databases.

And if the election comes down to the counting of provisional ballots cast in a state like Colorado, look out. We can expect to see James Baker back on television, this time demanding that the results be changed in McCain's favor because of massive voter fraud. From little ACORNs can come mighty lawsuits.

Richard L. Hasen, author of the Election Law Blog, is the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Night of the Long Knives - Hitler purges the SA Brownshirts no longer needed.The Rise of Adolf Hitler was written by Philip Gavinthis a chapter from that book. this is a sample of Hitlers climb to power brutality. The elimination of the SA, the Brownshirts are Replaced by the SS Blackshirts.Night of the Long Knives

The greatest challenge to Hitler's survival during the early years of the Third Reich came from his own brown-shirted storm troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung) led by Chief of Staff, Ernst Röhm.

The battle-scarred Röhm was a decorated World War I combat officer and a post-war street-brawler who had been with Hitler from the start. Röhm's jack-booted storm troopers were largely responsible for putting Hitler in power. On the front lines of the Nazi political revolution, they had risked their necks battling Communists for control of the streets and squashed anyone who stood in Hitler's way.

However, by the beginning of 1934, a full year after Hitler's seizure of power, things had changed. The SA's usefulness as a violent revolutionary force had effectively ended. To maintain his position as dictator of Germany, Hitler now needed the support of the all-powerful German General Staff with its 100,000-strong Army which had the power to crush his dictatorship whenever it pleased.

The big problem for Hitler was that Röhm and his arrogant young Brownshirts fancied themselves as the nucleus of new "people's army" that would replace the traditional Germany Army - similar to Napoleon's revolutionary army.

This put them in direct conflict with the General Staff. They were threatening to end a centuries-old way of life in Germany. The General Staff was a class unto itself, featuring men of wealth and privilege, many of whom could trace their lineages back to Germany's medieval warrior-princes. During his rise to power, Hitler had earned their support by repeatedly assuring them he would restore them to their former glory by breaking the "shackles" of the Treaty of Versailles which limited the Army to 100,000 men and prevented modernization.

And there were more problems with the SA. The anti-capitalist sentiments voiced by big-mouthed SA leaders and echoed by the restless masses of unemployed storm troopers created huge worries for the German businessmen who had bank-rolled Hitler's rise to power. Like the generals, Hitler had earned their support through repeated promises. In their case, he promised to snuff out the troublesome trade unions and Marxist agitators, which he did. But now, his own storm troopers with their talk of a Second Revolution were sounding like Marxists themselves. (The First Revolution having been the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933.)

Many of the working-class men who made up the SA truly believed in the 'socialism' of National Socialism and wanted to grab their share of Germany's wealth, at the expense of someone else, and if necessary by force. This Second Revolution was what they had been fighting for all along, or so they believed.

In addition to all this, the average German citizen truly disliked the Brownshirts with their gangster-like behavior which included extorting money from local shop owners, driving around in fancy new cars showing off, getting drunk, beating up and even murdering innocent people for fun.

For Adolf Hitler, the SA's behavior was a problem that now threatened his political survival and the entire future of Nazi Germany.

Hitler began the process of dealing with the SA problem by holding a meeting at the end of February 1934 attended by SA and Army leaders including Röhm and German Defense Minister, General Werner von Blomberg. At that meeting, Hitler plainly informed Röhm that the SA was not going to be a military force in Germany but would instead be limited to certain political functions. Röhm, in the presence of his Führer, readily agreed to this and even put his signature to just such an agreement with Blomberg.

But immediately after the meeting, Röhm let his true feelings be known. "What that ridiculous corporal says means nothing to us," Röhm told his Brownshirt cronies. "I have not the slightest intention of keeping this agreement. Hitler is a traitor, and at the very least must go on leave...If we can't get there with him, we'll get there without him."

Those remarks were reported back to Hitler by one of the Brownshirts. Two months later, Röhm dug a deeper hole for himself by holding a press conference in Berlin attended by foreign correspondents at which he boldly proclaimed: "The SA is the National Socialist Revolution!"

At this time, within the SA was the highly disciplined SS (Schutzstaffel) organization led by Heinrich Himmler. The SS were loyal to Adolf Hitler personally and no one else.

Sensing that Röhm had dangerously over-reached and was vulnerable, the ambitious Himmler, along with his second-in-command, Reinhard Heydrich, began plotting. And they were soon joined by another Nazi opportunist, Hermann Göring, who hoped to benefit from Röhm's downfall. Together, they began to feed a mix of falsified rumors and half-truths to Hitler concerning Röhm.

As a result, on June 4, Hitler and Röhm met for a private heart-to-heart talk that lasted a full five hours. At Hitler's request, Röhm announced a few days later that he was taking a "personal illness" vacation and that the entire four million-strong SA would go on leave for the month of July. SA Leader Ernst Roehm.

Röhm then scheduled a conference of top SA leaders for the end of June to be held at a resort village near Munich. Hitler promised to attend that meeting to help smooth things out.

However, quite unexpectedly, Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen fouled-up everything. Papen, who had helped Hitler become Chancellor, stunned everyone by giving a speech at the University of Marburg on June 17 in which he lambasted the rowdy behavior of the SA and denounced Nazi excesses such as strict press censorship. Papen also mentioned the possibility of Röhm's Second Revolution and urged Hitler to prevent it.

"Have we experienced an anti-Marxist revolution in order to put through a Marxist program?" Papen asked those in attendance. His question was answered with roars of applause from the conservative audience.

Papen's speech immediately raised the level of tension between the German Army leaders and the SA, further jeopardizing Hitler's position.

And things soon got worse. A few days later, June 21, Hitler visited President Paul von Hindenburg at his country estate. The Old Gentleman, accompanied by General Blomberg, stiffly admonished Hitler that the SA problem must be resolved or that he, the President, would simply declare martial law and let the German Army take over the country, effectively ending the Nazi regime.

Meanwhile, Himmler and Heydrich were busy spreading rumors that Röhm and the SA were planning an outright putsch (overthrow). Himmler also met with members of the General Staff and worked out a secret agreement ensuring cooperation between the SS and the Army in any action to be taken against the SA. The Army agreed to provide weapons and transports, but would remain in their barracks and let the SS handle things.

The problem now for Himmler and Göring was that no action could be taken without Hitler's approval. And although Hitler was being urged on all sides to act against Röhm, he found it difficult to give the actual go-ahead against his old comrade-in-arms and the SA organization which had served him so well. Göring, along with Himmler and Heydrich, responded to Hitler's hesitation by spreading even more rumors to keep up the pressure.

By June 25, the German Army had been placed on alert. All leaves were canceled and the troops were confined to barracks in accordance with the secret Himmler agreement.

Three days later, Thursday, June 28, Hitler and Göring attended the wedding of Gauleiter Josef Terboven in the city of Essen. During the event, Hitler was called to the telephone and told by Himmler that he faced the duel threat of an imminent putsch by Röhm and a possible revolt by powerful conservatives who wanted Hindenburg to declare martial law.

Believing that he was in danger of losing everything, Hitler sent Göring back to Berlin and authorized him to begin plans to put down the SA and the conservatives. Himmler's SS was also put on full alert.

On Friday, June 29, Hitler made a scheduled inspection tour of Labor Service camps in Westphalia and then went to a hotel near Bonn to spend the night. He received a series of late night phone calls and reports from Himmler and Göring indicating that SA troops had somehow found out about the coming action and were now preparing to strike back. Hitler left the hotel around 2 a.m. to fly to Munich in order to personally confront Röhm and the SA leaders who had gathered at the nearby Bad Wiessee resort.

Hitler landed in Munich near dawn on Saturday, June 30, and was informed by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner that some SA street demonstrations did occur overnight but had now dissipated. News of the disloyal demonstrations greatly angered Hitler. Accompanied by the SS, he was driven to the Ministry of the Interior building in Munich where he confronted three high-ranking SA men and ripped the Nazi insignia off their uniforms.

Next it was on to get Röhm. A column of cars containing Hitler and the SS sped off toward the resort hotel at Bad Wiessee to surprise him. Along the way they were joined by trucks containing Hitler's personal bodyguard, the Leibstandarte-SS, under the command of Sepp Dietrich.

Arriving about 6:30 a.m., the hotel was first secured by the SS before Hitler went inside. Accompanied by several SS men, Hitler then banged on Röhm's door and confronted the sleepy-eyed SA leader, screaming accusations of treachery at him for several minutes.

"Ernst," Hitler finally announced, "you are under arrest."

Thus ended a fifteen-year association between Hitler and one of the original members of the Nazi Party. Röhm and the other rudely awaken SA men were sent off under SS custody to Stadelheim prison outside Munich. An exception was made in the case of Edmund Heines, an SA leader who had been found in bed with a young male companion. When told of this, Hitler ordered his immediate execution.

A number of the SA leaders, including Röhm, were known homosexuals. Prior to the purge, Hitler for the most part ignored their behavior because of their usefulness to him. However, their usefulness and Hitler's tolerance had now ended. Later, their homosexuality would be used as a partial excuse for their subsequent executions.

About 10 a.m. Saturday morning a phone call was placed from Hitler to Göring in Berlin giving the prearranged code word "Kolibri" (hummingbird) which signaled a full go-ahead for the purge. This unleashed a wave of murderous violence by the SS in Berlin and 20 other cities. SS execution squads along with the Gestapo and Göring's private police roared through the streets hunting down SA leaders and anyone else on the prepared enemies list (later called the Reich List of Unwanted Persons).

Included on that list:

* Gregor Strasser, a founder of the Nazi Party and formerly next in importance to Hitler, who had broken with Hitler over political disagreements. Taken to Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, he was shot in the back and mortally wounded. * Kurt von Schleicher, former Chancellor of Germany and one-time master of political intrigue, who had helped topple democracy in Germany and put Hitler in power. He was attempting a political comeback, possibly at Hitler's expense. He was gunned down in his home along with his recently-wed wife. * 73-year-old old Gustav von Kahr, the now-retired government official who had dared to oppose Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch back in 1923. He was found hacked to death in a swamp near Dachau. * Father Bernhard Stempfle, a priest who had helped edit Hitler's book Mein Kampf and who knew too much about Hitler's tragic relationship with Geli Raubal. He wound up in the same swamp. * Berlin's SA leader, Karl Ernst, was shot along with three other SA men involved in torching the Reichstag building back in February 1933. * Erich Klausener, a conservative Catholic activist who had prepared Papen's Marburg speech, was shot along with Edgar Jung, Papen's private secretary, who also worked on the speech. Papen himself was spared due to his close relationship with President Hindenburg.

On Saturday evening, a weary and unshaven Hitler, who had not slept for some forty hours, flew back to Berlin. He was met at the airport by Göring and Himmler in a scene later described by Hans Gisevius, a Gestapo official, who was present:

"On his way to the fleet of cars, which stood several hundred yards away, Hitler stopped to converse with Göring and Himmler. Apparently he could not wait a few minutes until he reached the Chancellery�From one of his pockets Himmler took out a long, tattered list. Hitler read it through, while Göring and Himmler whispered incessantly into his ear. We could see Hitler's finger moving slowly down the sheet of paper. Now and then it paused for a moment at one of the names. At such times the two conspirators whispered even more excitedly. Suddenly Hitler tossed his head. There was so much violent emotion, so much anger in the gesture, that everybody noticed it�Finally they moved on, Hitler in the lead, followed by Göring and Himmler. Hitler was still walking with the same sluggish tread. By contrast, the two blood-drenched scoundrels at his side seemed all the more lively�"

As for Ernst Röhm, sitting in his cell inside Stadelheim prison - at first Hitler hesitated but was gradually prodded by Göring and Himmler into approving his death. Röhm was then given a pistol containing a single bullet and a time limit of ten minutes in which to commit suicide. But Röhm, arrogant to the end, refused. "If I am to be killed let Adolf do it himself."

Two SS officers, one of whom was Dachau Kommandant, Theodor Eicke, entered Röhm's cell after fifteen minutes and shot him point blank. Reportedly, Röhm's last words were: "Mein Führer, Mein Führer!" To which the brutal-minded Eicke responded: "You should have thought of that before! It's too late now."

Other high-ranking SA captives in the prison had been systematically finished-off by a firing squad composed of members of the Leibstandarte-SS under Dietrich's command. Each of the doomed SA men had been informed by Dietrich: "You have been condemned to death by the Führer for high treason. Heil Hitler!"

Another SS firing squad operated at the Lichterfelde Barracks near Berlin, home quarters of the Leibstandarte-SS. Shots rang out every twenty minutes like clockwork as SA men were put before the wall, followed by the command: "By order of the Führer. Aim. Fire!"

On Sunday evening, July 1, while some of the shooting was still going on, Hitler hosted an innocent looking tea party in the garden of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin for cabinet members and their families to give the appearance things were getting back to normal.

At 4 a.m., Monday, July 2, the bloody 72-hour purge ended on Hitler's say. The exact number of murders is unknown since all Gestapo documents related to the purge were destroyed. Estimates vary widely from 200 to as high as a thousand or more. Fewer than half of those murdered were SA men. A lot of old scores had been settled by Hitler, Göring, Himmler, and Heydrich.

And a few mistakes were made. In one case, a man named Willi Schmid was at home with his family playing the cello. Four SS men rang the doorbell, entered and abruptly hauled him away, leaving his wife and three young children behind gazing in disbelief. Apparently, they had mistaken Dr. Willi Schmid, respected music critic for a Munich newspaper, for another Schmid on the enemies list. Nevertheless, they shot him anyway. The body of Dr. Schmid was later returned to his family in a sealed coffin with orders from the Gestapo that it should never be opened.

Immediately after the purge, Hitler received a congratulatory telegram from President Hindenburg commending his "decided action and gallant personal intervention which have nipped treason in the bud and rescued the German people from great danger." Likewise, the German Army generals echoed their approval.

For Hitler, the only task remaining now was to somehow explain it all to the shell-shocked German people and the incredulous foreign press corp. On July 13, he appeared before the Nazi Reichstag and gave a two-hour emotional speech which turned out to be one of the most important of his career. He justified the murders by citing the various putsch rumors as fact and then took full responsibility for his actions, announcing that seventy-seven had indeed perished.

"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people!"

"It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we spoke of it we called it the 'Night of the Long Knives.' Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot!"

Not only had Hitler eliminated the Brownshirt threat, but now he proclaimed himself to be the supreme judge of the German people, in effect placing himself above the law.

The German Army generals, by condoning the purge, locked themselves in step with Hitler and began the long journey that would take them over the next eleven years to the brink of world conquest and finally to the hanging docks at Nuremberg.

A few weeks after the purge, Hitler rewarded Himmler by raising the SS to independent status. No longer part of the SA, Himmler would now answer only to Hitler. Reinhard Heydrich, co-mastermind of the purge, was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant-General). Himmler rewarded the SS men who did the actual shooting by giving each one a specially inscribed SS dagger.

The Brownshirts ceased to be a threat to Hitler and over time all but disappeared into the regular Army after Hitler re-introduced military conscription. But Germany now had a new and even bigger threat, Himmler's black-coated SS. Absolutely loyal to Hitler, they would kill anyone on command and would become the Führer's personal instrument of terror on a continental scale as well as a gigantic military force.

Now, in the summer of 1934, there was only one man who stood between Adolf Hitler and absolute power in Germany. And that man, 87-year-old President Paul von Hindenburg, lay dying at his country estate. For several weeks, everyone awaited the Old Gentleman's demise with a nagging sense of uncertainty over what it might mean for Germany's future. Hitler, however, knew exactly what it would mean.

I hope this isnt too far off topic. I was just reading a thing about Hitler's homosexuality and how once chancellor he had some of his old lays wacked as well as others for more political reasons. Executive power is as unamerican as it gets imo.

"Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression." Qur'an 5:2At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value..." -RFK

I hope this isnt too far off topic. I was just reading a thing about Hitler's homosexuality and how once chancellor he had some of his old lays wacked as well as others for more political reasons. Executive power is as unamerican as it gets imo.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately

JTCoyoté

In the 4th hour of today show, (10/12/09) Alex talks with noted author, lecturer, and former Hitler youth, Hilmar von Campe, the German émigré who witnessed first hand the terrible consequences of self deception and lack of character in the leadership in Nazi Germany.

Well worth the listen...

--Oldyoti

"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty."~James Madison

The NWO / Rockefeller's, Rothschild's, will undoubtedly focus the bulwark of their efforts here in the USA. We are still the main stumbling block yet in the way of them completing their sick dream of world domination. It is beginning to look as though there is finally enough technology available for them to achieve this goal.

DHS, FEMA Camps, thousands of foreign troops "training" in mass on our soil, and possibly more stationed North or South of our borders who will not mind enforcing the U.N. dictates so readily embraced by our traitorous government. Couple this with the weather manipulation destroying the food supply, the monetary black-hole we now find ourselves in, the poisoning of the population through GM manipulation, purposely contaminated vaccines, and our loving FDA which approves most anything big pharma comes up with, and why not the $$ are good and the Pharmacy companies are exempt from prosecution.

Even with this onslaught of evil the one aspect of our lives here in the U.S which keeps these cockroaches from just outright slaughtering us firing squad style is, we own firearms.

It shall no doubt be those "Bitter Clingers" and true Patriots who will be targeted first. But I can assure you that neither the Rockefeller's nor Rothschild families will have the balls to attempt it themselves.